Working Desire: 5 Tips for Maximizing Pleasure in Your Creativity
I love my job.
Every day and all day, I get to write and do other creative work.
I love writing and being creative so much I use working as a reward for getting other mundane tasks done.
But what happens when you love your artistic craft, but have a hard time actually doing the work?
The Key to Cultivating Desire
I haven’t always written full-time. So I know from experience that many obstacles, both internal and external, can stand in the way of our efforts to write or create art: limited time, limited energy, artistic insecurities, lack of motivation and the list goes on.
The key to tempering or overcoming these obstacles is to focus on the pleasure and rewards derived from your creative work, which in turn creates an on-going desire to work on a consistent basis.
Given our busy schedules and the less-than-creative nature of typical, everyday life, it’s easy to lose touch with the inherent pleasure of creativity and our desire to engage it on a regular basis.
So, how do we cultivate this desire to work creatively? How do we maximize the pleasure that is inherent to creativity?
Tips for Maximizing Pleasure
Here are some strategies I use for cultivating the desire to work and maximizing my pleasure in doing it:
- Focus on what you love. It’s easy to focus on what you feel you “should” do creatively, instead of focusing on making possible what you love and what stokes your passion. For instance, you might feel you “should” be focusing on publishing your poetry, when what really excites you is spoken word performance. Or maybe you write poetry, but what you really enjoy is writing prose. What if you write, but actually love some entirely different creative work, such as painting or music? Take a deep look at where your creative pleasure truly lies, let your core creative desires guide you, and focus your artistic efforts in those directions.
- Identify and address obstacles. In my experience, dealing with internal or external obstacles comprises the main challenge for doing creative work. For instance, most artists struggle with finding enough time and energy to work on our artistic craft. And identifying and addressing emotional obstacles to being creative is fundamental to finding the courage and self-confidence required to create brilliant art. So, look closely at what’s keeping you from doing what you love to do creatively and determine the best methods for overcoming or tempering those obstacles.
- Take creative risks. Finding ways to focus on our core creative desires and overcoming internal and external obstacles usually require that we take risks not simply in our creative endeavors but also within our daily lives. For instance, cutting back your hours at a day job in order to pursue your creative work can be such a frightening idea that many artists don’t even consider it as a possibility. Or making the effort to shift your family and household management in order to create more time for your creative work can seem so daunting as to be impossible. Or putting down the writing pen and taking up a paintbrush can be truly scary. Regardless of your external or internal challenges, creativity requires risk in one’s work and in one’s life. However, if you’re not taking risks, then you won’t be able to gain the immense rewards and pleasure that come with creative success. So, open your mind to what’s creatively possible by determining the risks, large or small, that you can take in your creative work and career.
- Be diligent. Some artists swear that rigorous discipline is necessary to working. And if you’re able to produce creatively by being disciplined, then that’s fantastic. However, if the notion of discipline, or regimented routine, seems too stifling or inorganic to your creativity, then try reframing your work as a matter of diligence, or as simply making an honest and simple effort to do your creative work on a regular basis. By shifting your point of view from discipline to simply making a consistent effort, you might be surprised by how much more easily you can produce creative work and thereby enhance your pleasure in the process.
- Let it be good enough. Finding satisfaction and pleasure in your creative work requires that you let your best efforts be “good enough” until you’re able to stretch creatively and make more brilliant art. In other words, it’s important to practice and work towards strengthening one’s creative skills, but it’s equally important to sit back and bask in a job well done. If you’re constantly dissatisfied by your creative work, then there’s a serious problem. It’s pleasure in creative success that will take you back to your artistic craft over and over again, not dissatisfaction or the perfectionism that tends to underlie it. So, let your creative work be good enough and take in the pleasure that comes with making a solid creative effort.
Have Some Creative Fun
Creative work is fun and easy if you nurture the inherent pleasure of creativity.
And that type of pleasure is addictive. The more you feel pleasure in your creative work, then the more you’ll actually want to work. And in this case, you’re much more likely to practice on a regular basis, to stretch your creative wings, strengthen your creative skills, and grow as an artist. Once you’re actually enjoying your creative work, then it’ll become playful and fun, and it won’t seem like “work” at all.
So, focus on and maximize pleasure in your art and see if you begin to feel an intrinsic desire to work. But most of all, simply let yourself have some fun.
What brings you pleasure in your creative work?
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Flickr photo courtesy of redcargurl
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Such good reminders, presented in a way that shows we have many more choices than might be thought. I completely agree that more work and taking pleasure in the work go hand in hand. Life is too short to spend doing what doesn’t self-satisfy.
Maureen´s last [type] ..Facts- New or Not
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Ami Mattison Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 8:51 am
Very well put, Maureen. Life is indeed too short to not grasp one’s creative pleasure with both hands. Thanks for sharing!
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I really enjoyed reading the 5 tips…will look at it again…I really liked #5….hard to do but it needs to be done….enjoy reading and keeping up with you… KEEP WRITING ….blessings….bb
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Ami Mattison Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
BB! It’s great to see your comment! Yes, that #5 is much easier said than done, but as you suggest, it’s necessary. Thanks for stopping by and feel free to do so anytime. Blessings to you as well!
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I think #5 is the one I have struggled with the most here. Blogging has helped me immensely here because I have to post on a regular basis and so can’t afford to spend weeks on a project – a week is about my upper limit – and so I’ve had to learn that ‘good enough’ is all that my writing needs to be most of the time and there’s no need to obsess over every syllable. Getting the words exactly right is pointless if the thought you’re trying to express is half-baked. Once that thought is sharp there are usually loads of ways you can express it and there’s rarely a ‘right’ way, a perfect way. This is not about lowering standards, it’s about setting realistic standards. The best example I can thing of is the very first sentence in my very first novel which because it was the first thing I always read got worked on more than any other sentence on the whole book and fifteen years later when it was finally published I looked back on my first draft and after every tweak I had made to it it was exactly the same as I first wrote it and I will never be happy with it. But then again I could be Grand in Camus’ The Plague and still working on that first damn sentence and nothing else.
Jim Murdoch´s last [type] ..A conversation with Stephen Nelson
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Ami Mattison Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Ha, Jim! We could all still be writing that first sentence. Fortunately, most of us learn to move on. Your personal example speaks volumes to me about how we can tinker and tweak and basically be writing the same thing over and over again.
But letting our work be good enough is a big challenge for most artists I think. Freelancing was a painful lesson in which I learned to simply let a piece go and let it stand on its own merit–good, bad, or ugly. And now blogging keeps me honest in this respect.
And I’m so glad you mention how this issue isn’t a matter of lowering standards but a matter of simply being realistic about where one’s skills are at, the amount of time and energy available, what a piece actually requires, etc.
Thanks for sharing your experience. As always, I find it illuminating.
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These are great tips. #3 Take creative risks and #5 Learn what is good enough are my favorites and remind me that I don’t have to be perfect, I just have to tap into my inner resources and have fun in the process. Thanks for an inspirational post!
Kathleen Pooler´s last [type] ..Writing for the Soul
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Ami Mattison Reply:
February 18th, 2011 at 1:28 am
Thank you, Kathleen! You’ve said it so well: we don’t have to be perfect! And I honestly believe that we won’t be able to get to our own brilliance until we let go of that perfectionism. Keep tapping those inner resources and definitely, have fun!
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I do enjoy writing. The integrating of ideas that bounce around in my head in a creative way. I enjoy a challenge, that is thinking of creative ways to deliver my ideas and words. I love that writing has a beginning and ending. You know when it is complete, even if it gives you more ideas. I enjoy the process of learning to write. I’m thrilled to find something I enjoy and to grow it. Now, the obstacles – those are what I wrestle with!
Marci | Liberating Choices´s last [type] ..Mend Broken Hearts with Love Gifts
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Ami Mattison Reply:
February 19th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
I know what you mean, Marci. Obstacles can indeed be major challenges to simply getting the work done and finding pleasure in it. And while many artists struggle with the same general obstacles such as balancing home life with creative work or finding enough time and energy, the sneaky thing about these obstacles is that they’re so individualized, suggesting they can only be resolved through individualized solutions.
But I think focusing on our accomplishments and on what we do make possible for ourselves can be another way to put those obstacles into perspective and to find the motivation for figuring out viable solutions.
Good luck! And thanks for sharing your experience!
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I love the idea of taking Creative Risks, Ami. One of the reasons I love being a full-time writer is that I can take these risks and really enjoy them. I used to do this before, as a designer, but I always had to be aware of my client’s needs. Now I am my own client it’s only up to me… That’s great!
Graham Phoenix | Male eXperience´s last [type] ..Do Men Know What Love Is No- Of Course Not!
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Ami Mattison Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Yes, Graham! Creative risk is what it’s all about for me too. The rewards are much greater when you take that leap (or small step) of faith and try something risky. Sounds like you’ve already taken a few risks in your career. Thanks for sharing your experience and good luck with your creative risk-taking!
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Excellent post – with so many blogs out there on writing/creating it’s rare to come across something as unique and useful as this. A good reminder to find the joy in our creative work, without avoiding the challenges either. The best thing I’ve read on the subject for a long, long while. Thank you.
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Ami Mattison Reply:
February 23rd, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Thank you, James, for your generous compliment! It makes me happy that you enjoyed the article and found it useful. It’s true we can’t avoid challenges, but then why would we? I think an intrinsic part of the joy of creative work comes from confronting, negotiating, or overcoming obstacles. Challenge makes for thrill and risk and ultimately more pleasure! Thanks for sharing!
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